Excerpt
Our provenance studies now allow some important constraints to be placed on reconstruction of the river systems since the mid Holocene. Our data show that the Yamuna likely flowed west, not east as it does now, at least prior to 49 ka. Such a change in drainage pattern is possible because the Yamuna reaches the Himalayan foreland close to the crest of the drainage divide. Why the switch from Indus to Ganges occurred is unknown but could reflect a number of processes diverting the river east, such as an avulsion event driven by autocyclic processes, as seen for example by the 120 km shift of the Kosi River in 2008. The Beas River was delivering material directly to Tilwalla prior to 10 ka, which in turn would require the Sutlej to have flowed into the Ghaggar-Hakra east of Marot. This means the northern Thar region must have been an area with several major confluences and a large river with a combined flow arguably sufficient to reach as far as the Arabian Sea. While drainage from the Yamuna may have been lost from the Ghaggar-Hakra well before development of the Harappan Civilization, flow from the Beas and Sutlej may have been more recent in Cholistan, if still prior to 10 ka. Loss of these rivers might be expected to have had a catastrophic effect on sustaining settlement in this region, but our evidence argues against this. Water in the small Ghaggar-Hakra (or Sarasvati) River would have been further reduced by monsoon weakening from 4.2 ka (Enzel et al., 1999; Staubwasser et al., 2003; Wünnemann et al., 2010), but evidence for dra- matic changes in water sources was much earlier. While drainage capture is dramatic in the eastern Indus Basin in the late Quaternary, it appears to have occurred prior to human settlement and not to have directly caused the Harappan collapse.

..... energetic minister of culture deployed considerable resources of government (to go by his press statements) is breath-taking; there have been, says, BP Radhakrishna, such “tectonic disturbances” after 5000 BC as cut off the Sarasvati “from the perennial source of water from the snowy Himalayas” (pp.8-9). For this he surprisingly cites not a geologist but OP Bharadwaj, with no known geological skills. Bharadwaj puts this “large-scale tectonic-seismic-volcanic upheaval” (p.190) even later, around 3000 BC. Uptill now no proof has been offered of such recent volcanic activity in the Himalayas within the Holocene, and Bhardwaj’s reference to it should surely have put Radhakrishnan on guard. As to “seismic” there is no known earthquake in history which could have had such consequences as levelling huge high mountains and raising others to divert courses of rivers in the Himalayan range. Not a single instance of an earthquake-induced change of course in a mountain river of this magnitude has been cited anywhere.

"India must pursue knowledge of its past for the sake of it and not to push any agenda. It must remove the ideological bias that exists against putting resources into any indigenist issues. But to repeat the mistake of ideological imposition would be disappointing."

"This has inspired a backlash from the right―both the liberal and the hard right. With the landslide win of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there is a feeling that it is now payback time. All kinds of ‘facts’ and ‘theories’ have proliferated with varying degrees of evidence to back them. Given this atmosphere, there is acceptance of ‘rightist’ theories, no matter how outlandish."

"The Indigenous Aryan brand of history suffers from a high decibel level but low levels of actual hard work and evidence. It is not enough to assert a point of view; if it opposes the mainstream view, it must give cogent reasons for this. Has enough hard work been done on this aspect? The poor research quality of much of indigenist writing does not help it to be taken seriously."

"This is not a very useful way of going forward. India must pursue knowledge of its past for the sake of it and not to push any agenda. It must, of course, remove the ideological bias that exists against putting resources into any indigenist issues; for instance, the bias against pursuing work on identifying the lost Saraswati River. But to repeat the same mistake of ideological imposition would be disappointing."

It is indeed surprising that even in the attempt to remove the bias of religious ideology from historical research in Republic of India, the religious ideology bias inadvertently still come to the fore. Indeed a sad state of affairs.

There are many Hindu scholars who state that Vedas do not represent history and that they do not also represent any physical reality as physical reality. They support their assertions stating that there is no evidence that "sindhu" means "River". This is supported by indication of same suktas mention rivers of milk in the sky, chariots drawn by deer that spring out of thin air, etc and once sindhu is claimed to be a river, it is followed by the extrapolations of other words such as "rasa" and "anitabha" etc which are also claimed to be rivers. These scholars feel,that the Veda is to be understood with certain faculties such as synesthesia - rather than with various faculties associated with sense.

The examples of above are also linked to physical references, metaphors, synecdoche (upalakshana) etc. in such cases, they state that "river of milk in the sky" could be galaxies - at a physical level -- and in synesthesia perception it would blossom a Gestalt whose prime significance is completely unconnected to any physical galaxy.

When one reads about these philosophical interpretations accrued from Veda being the word of the God and unrelated to the physical beings, one reaches the conclusion that mythical Saraswati as a physical being or a river, never existed, as proclaimed.

"There are two elements of Harappan settlements in the Ghaggar-Hakra region that is often given weight by scholars of Republic of India in proving the superiority of Saraswati over Indus. First is the number game: there are more number of Harappan settlements along the Saraswati than the whole of Indus Valley. Second is the corollary of the first: if there are more number of sites on the Saraswati then the birth place of this civilisation should be Saraswati. These are childish arguments of which people like Chakraborty are responsible. To begin with, the number game is deliberately skewed. Any site where even an Indus shred was discovered was declared Harappan. We do not know how many of these discoveries are genuinely Harappan. Furthermore, in these discoveries, there is no distinction made between early, mature and post Harappan sites. So we do not know the real number. Second and probably more important is that we do not know the size of these newly discovered Harappan sites. Most of them are really small, not exceeding half a hectare, even less. Because of this, key sites like Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Chunnodahro, Kot Digi and Allahadino etc may be equal to hundreds of Harappan sites on Ghaggar. On the basis of this present and available data therefore, the Saraswati sites can not be considered more important.

These aspects have been highlighted in much more details in five excellent volumes written by Mukhtar Ahmed in his series on "Ancient Pakistan - An Archeological History.

I for one find it endearing that there are people in India willing to be self critical and try to turn against the tide when it comes to history. Shocking, however, that you won't find such honesty from Pakistan.

I for one find it endearing that there are people in India willing to be self critical and try to turn against the tide when it comes to history. Shocking, however, that you won't find such honesty from Pakistan.

Well then you don't know the truth about Republic of India. Those who try to go against the tide are hounded, persecuted and branded Marxists and are identified as anti-state elements. Haven't you seen posters from Republic of India here branding world famous historian from their own country Romila Thapar and many others being branded Marxists and what all.

In Pakistan, the media, the writers freely express their views, write books against the Armed Forces, politicians and the elite etc without fear of being hounded and persecuted. Only the fringe elements and terrorists etc go against free speach and there is a war being waged against all such elements.

Pakistanis are much more honest than anything seen in Republic of India. Thank you.

Dorian Fuller of Institute of Archeology, University college of London who studied the climatic aspect for the decline of the Harappa civilization has come out with some startling revelations. He says that the river Ghaggar was losing a consistent year round water supply during the Harappa times itself and that the “Harappa urbanism emerged on the face of a prolonged trend towards declining rainfall”.

Therefore climate cannot be a cause for the collapse of Harappa. It is therefore unacceptable the view of some scholars that there prevailed “climatic and environmental stability since the mid-Holocene in the region”. Mid-Holocene wet phase came to an end by the time of the establishment of the Mature Harappan civilization of the second half of the third millennium BCE. In the report the authors, Madella and Fuller cite McKean with respect to the climate of Balakot, a Harappan site west of Karachi, who stated that “there is nothing in the Balakot pollen data which might suggest that the climate during the protohistoric period in the Las Bela was decidedly wetter than at present” (Madella, 2006:1283-1301).

Therefore there is nothing to show that the rivers played a crucial role in the development of the Harappan civilization.

It is indeed surprising that all the major Rig Vedic rivers, even during the post Vedic period, retained their names like Sindhu, Jamuna and Ganga, however, Saraswati which was also a major river was later identified as the Ghaggar-Hakra river. The later name not even remotely resembles the earlier supposed name. Even the famous CF Oldham also mentions this aspect.

Many scholars state that due to the fact that Sanskrit word Saraswati qualifies a river evoking a strong sense of respect among the Vedic tribes. They point out that the word Saraswati can be split into two parts i.e. saras (sara = water) + vati = filled with, which indicates the meaning of qualifying something as being full of water. It can also be used as an adjective. These scholars therefore, argued that the Rig Vedic tribes had probably adored the majestic Rig Vedic river Sindhu as Saraswati, as a river with large dimension.

Recent scientific studies have already proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the dried bed of Ghaggar-Hakra river is not the Rig Vedic Saraswati river. Therefore, many scholars give credence to the above theory.

Dorian Fuller of Institute of Archeology, University college of London who studied the climatic aspect for the decline of the Harappa civilization has come out with some startling revelations. He says that the river Ghaggar was losing a consistent year round water supply during the Harappa times itself and that the “Harappa urbanism emerged on the face of a prolonged trend towards declining rainfall”.

It is not new, the tectonic disturbance was already happening between 2500 BCE to 1900 BCE, so obviously during IVC time that started, this created Thor desert(similar to Mahabharata's description of Saraswati drying up in desert), however Rig Veda's validity further increases when later Vedic literature mentions the river disappearing at Vinasana(the disappearing).

Also Rig Veda places Saraswati between Yamuna and Sutlej, consistent with Ghaggar.